2005 Honda Element Lx Sport Utility 4-door 2.4l on 2040-cars

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Honda shows off Civic Tourer ahead of Frankfurt debut

This is the new Honda Civic Tourer that will be appearing at the Frankfurt Motor Show next month and that will go on sale in Europe early next year. Created by Honda's European studio, it tweaks the lines and the glasswork of the five-door Civic to create a more muscular profile below the shoulder.
When it's time to haul, a lower load height allows access to a slightly higher floor, arranged so that it creates a flat surface when the rear seats are folded. Honda says the Civic Tourer offers class-leading interior space, the cargo area able to swallow 624 liters from the floor to the window line with the rear seats up, 1,668 liters with the rear seats down and items piled up to the roof. Extra storage can be had in below-floor spaces, and even the rear seat bolsters can flip up to make space for tall goods. An included tonneau cover hides valuables in the back and can be stored out of the way when not in use.
Under the hood will be either the Earth Dreams 1.6 i-DTEC diesel engine or the 1.8 i-VTEC petrol engine, working through a choice of manual or automatic transmissions. An adaptive damper system aims to provide handling to match the looks, with available comfort, normal and dynamic settings.

Top 10 small cars with the longest total driving range

Editor's Note: Since this article was originally posted in the spring of 2015, much has changed in the automotive landscape, especially among those shopping for small car economy. With thanks to Volkswagen for their blatant cheating – and subsequent cover-up – on diesel emissions, the largest player in the diesel passenger car segment isn't playing – they're paying; billions are going for both car buybacks and federally-imposed penalties. And for a few VW execs there exists the very real possibility of jail. With the absence of a big player and the abrupt entrance – via Chevy's new Bolt – of an affordable EV with 200+ miles of range, we've limited the diesel listings to Jaguar's new XE. And for those wanting an updated look at efficiency and range, Autoblog has it – or the EPA has it. Long before electric vehicles were part of the mainstream conversation, car lovers and skinflints alike would boast about the total range of their vehicles. There's something about getting farther down the road on one tank of gas that inflames the competitive spirit, almost as much as horsepower output or top speed. Of course, the vehicles with the very best range on today's market are almost all big trucks and SUVs; virtually all have the ability to carry massive reserves of fuel. Top up a standard Chevy Suburban and you can expect to travel almost 700 miles (you'll need to stop before the Suburban stops...), while a diesel-fed Jeep Grand Cherokee manages almost as many. But what about vehicles that are smaller? The EPA has, essentially, three classifications for 'small' vehicles: Minicompact, Subcompact and Compact. All three are measured based on interior volume, meaning that some cars with rather large exterior dimensions and engines slot in next to traditional small cars. But even though impressive GT coupes from Porsche, Bentley and Mercedes-Benz may have much larger gas tanks to feed their powerful engines, that capacity is offset by higher rates of consumption... in most cases. We used the EPA's Fuel Economy Guide for model year 2017 cars as a start, calculating the official highway miles per gallon rating with each vehicle's tank capacity. The resulting numbers aren't necessarily real world, but they do offer a spectrum for total theoretical range. The eventual top ten surprised me on a few occasions, and comprised quite a varied list of vehicles. 10.

Honda CR-Z carbon-fiber prototype

When Honda rolled out the CR-Z a few years ago, it hoped to bridge the gap between those who would save the planet and those who would rather burn all of its resources in a glorious cloud of tire smoke. But enthusiasts recalling the CRX of 1980s vintage balked, imploring Honda to ditch the heavy battery packs and electric motors in favor of a lighter-weight, more conventional powertrain. At this point it seems less likely that Honda would do so at one end of the market than Porsche would ditch the hybrid component of its 918 Spyder at the other. But that doesn't mean Honda isn't still cooking up ways to curb the CR-Z's weight. And it had just one such idea waiting for us when we visited its Japanese R&D center at Tochigi last week.
Nestled in between the JDM hatchbacks, powertrain test mules and new technology prototypes Honda rolled out for us sat the experimental CR-Z you see here. While it may look mostly like the hybrid sport-hatch you can pick up at your local dealer (albeit blacked out), nearly all of this prototype's bodywork has been completely replaced, as have its basic underpinnings, with carbon-fiber reinforced plastic. The exotic material is usually reserved for high-end exotics, but like BMW is democratizing its use in the new i3, so too is Honda researching ways to implement the use of carbon fiber on a mass scale. This one-of-a-kind CR-Z prototype stands, for the time being, as the embodiment of that effort.
Driving Notes